


waiting; wanting

by pressforward



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Kirkwall, i'm so sorry i thought it was a good idea at the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:43:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressforward/pseuds/pressforward
Summary: Fenhawke on the run after the destruction of Kirkwall's Chantry. The daily desperate monotony of life as a fugitive, and the dread of wanting too many things that are no longer yours to have.





	waiting; wanting

**Author's Note:**

> From approximately 2016; finally getting around to posting.

There isn’t a good reason for you to bother with maps anymore.

You tell this to Fenris, hungry and aggrieved, and he leaves off scanning the horizon to lean against you and scan the map instead. Then he reaches out and turns it in your hands so the mountains sit more to your left, a different forest dead ahead, and all the writing goes up and down like trees. You squint at the map, the sun, and the map again as he waits, then roll your eyes at him.

“Now I _really_ don’t know why we bother,” you tell him, and he laughs at you, starting to walk. You fold up the map and shove it into the pouch at your hip before following.

He leads you down a game path, freshly used, then crosses rock and stream and rock again. You follow more carefully; you’ve turned ankles on smooth river rocks before. He has too, but hardly seems to care, so you lag and grumble and complain of wet boots to see if he will tease you.

No such luck. His humor’s the quiet sort today, though an hour after you’ve left the stream behind, he does pause and turn to tell you, with a particularly wry twist to his mouth, that he has found the only thing magic might be good for if it would just clean out the stink from your boots.

He would never have said that before. Your laugh startles you, and two birds from a nearby tree, and his expression flickers from contrite to pleased to uncertain before he turns away. You don’t complain so much after that.

You’re both quiet as you crest a slight rise, then halt. A road comes snaking out of the hills to your right; ahead of you is only plains, and the forest continues to the left. You consider the possibilities. Not that there are many. Away from people, and a chance of getting thoroughly lost. Towards people, and a chance of being caught. A middle road, with risks from the best of both. Left, maybe. 

You hate making the call, you’ve pulled him into enough of your mess already. When you look, he gestures left, and you tilt your head, lift your eyebrows, see if he will smile.

He does, then looks at the ground. He takes one step forward, then another, and is nearly a full cart-length (a big one, with an awning, smack in the center of the street on market day in Lowtown) ahead before he realizes you haven’t followed. You’re still looking at the landscape ahead of him, how much further you will both have to travel.

He waits. You shrug off the contemplation and start towards him, reaching out.

“Hawke,” is all he says as he takes your hand, and you thrill to the sound. He’s not one for nicknames, not like Varric or Isabela or even Merrill, but there’s never been a need. He still calls you ‘Hawke’ even in unguarded moments, ‘Garrett’ a bare handful of times. There’s a trick to his inflection that makes it… significant.

When he wakes, you think, it is the clearest. He opens his eyes, sets one hand against your chest, gentle and flat-palmed, and says your name. Softly. Certainly. With something like warmth, and something like relief. As though you have been lost for years and he has just found you again. As though he has been searching for you all that time.

You don’t have his skill with delivery, so you kiss him instead. Even with his morning breath, even with your mouth feeling tacky from splitting the last of your water yesterday afternoon, the grit in your eyes, the twinge in your neck, and your hunger. You’d forgotten how hungry a person could be.

Even so, you kiss him, and he kisses you back.

You wouldn’t mind more mornings like this.

—

You sleep soundly most nights and some days, the both of you. Then you wake and dodge patrols and pursuers and anyone else who might recognize you, and try to earn what coin you can, however you can. In between, when there’s time to rest, you deal with the dreams as they come.

Weeks later, you shudder out of one that’s all fire and wreckage and whispered promises, breathing hard. It’s not a loud one, thankfully, but you can hear the blood pounding through your head, can’t quite believe Fenris is still asleep in face of the persistent beat. Your chest is tight and hot, and you need air, now, immediately.

You wriggle out of the blankets as carefully as you can, try to rearrange them but you can’t see and there is a hammering in your ears, so you give up and take several short fast steps away. There, you give up on standing as well, drop to the ground and sit with your knees up, head down. You concentrate on breathing. You do not weep.

Eventually, the sound of your heartbeat recedes.

The night is as quiet as it gets in the woods this time of year. Crickets, mostly. Small animals going about their business in the underbrush, several owls, distant frogs. You mark the direction of the last; you’ll need water in the morning. Then Fenris stirring, slowly at first, then with a sudden rustle as he realizes you aren’t there. Probably the draft that woke him. There’s only so much you can do with the blankets without rousing him as well.

“Hawke?” he says, a small lonely sound, and you are already answering, can’t even consider what it would be like not to.

“Here,” you say, turning in place, then clear your throat and try again. “I’m over here.”

There’s a sound you take for him dropping back to the ground. He’s quiet for a moment, then says, _“Why.”_

You smile. It’s small, and feels hollow, but it’s there. “Couldn’t sleep.”

After a moment, he just sighs, makes a motion you can't see. You think he is rubbing his eyes.

“Come back.”

It’s reflex, mostly, that moves your mouth. “Make me.”

He grunts, then sits up again. After a moment, you hear one of his joints crack as he stands, then the soft tread of his feet as he comes to crouch by you. Unerring, his hand finds your wrist in the dark and he tugs, gently at first. You decide to keep sitting. He waits a moment, to see if you’ll stand, then sets his heels and pulls in earnest.

When this fails to move you, he groans and folds boneless against your side, face tucking into the join of shoulder to neck. You put your arms around him.

“Insufferable man,” he says, then gently presses his lips against your throat. Your pulse is still fast, jumps at the touch, but he says nothing about it. He knows better than to ask about your nightmares when they’re still so close.

“Will you at least lie down?”

“On the _ground?”_ you say, and he snorts.

“Such delicate sensibilities. _I_ would like to lie down.”

“In a moment.”

_“Now,_ please.”

You yield. “Fine, then. For you. I may need your eyes though.”

He stifles a yawn, lets you lever him up when you stand. “You have them, as well as the rest of me.”

“Charming.”

“I do occasionally try.”

When you make it back to the bedding, he burrows in again, covers your hand with his own when you curl around him. His limbs go slack and breathing even, and by the time you are settled, it seems he is already back asleep. You shut your eyes and try to do the same. You try for what feels like a very long time.

Once you stop trying, you lift your arm and shuffle away from Fenris, roll to your other side to see if that will work a little better. It doesn’t. You toss, then turn, then scratch yourself and turn again to stare up at the sky. There’s nothing there. You don’t know what you were expecting. You put your hands over your eyes and press palms to sockets, drop them and then turn yet again to find Fenris awake and staring accusingly at you.

He puts one hand on your shoulder. You can’t tell if it’s comfort or warning or both. “What is it?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” you tell him.

He exhales, then slides one arm around you, shifts closer. “That’s how this all started, yes.”

“Can’t sleep,” you amend, and try not to sulk.

“So talk to me,” he says, last words stretching on a yawn. You know that tone. In about ten minutes, you will be talking at him, and he will be the one asleep.

“About?”

“Anything you want.”

What you want? Now that’s a thought. That’s several thoughts, really, all of which you haven’t had in a while. Needs have taken precedence, the last few months.

You want _this,_ you nearly say. A quiet night beside him, and another, and another, and another, until you can’t count them anymore. His clarity of purpose and dry humor. His half-smile and his breathing against you. Many things. You’ve had and lost so much already, but for a little while, maybe you will actually be able to hold on to this.

It’s too much to ask. You reconsider.

“I want a proper bed,” you say instead, lamenting, and he snorts, shoves his face against your collarbone. 

“I should have known. What else.”

“Mm. A farm.”

This startles a laugh out of him. “You left behind your manse in Kirkwall to spend your nights in the woods, wishing for a farm?”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” you tell him, mockingly affronted. “Half the city on fire and a March on the horizon. Why, don’t you want a farm?”

“Not particularly.”

“We could get a farm.”

“If that’s what you truly desire,” he says, sounding unconvinced, but mostly half-asleep.

“It would be a nice farm. We could have... an orchard. Maybe a brook nearby.”

“Where?” he asks, indulgent. His arms are growing heavier against you, and his breathing is beginning to slow.

“Somewhere warm, maybe? Warm and far away, with plenty of space. We could even have children--”

“None of those,” he says, and you kiss the top of his head, continue.

“We could could have lots of whatever you like. Chickens? Sheep? Goats?”

“Peace and quiet,” he says, words slurring, accent showing stronger.

You could have lots of that, but you’ll admit you’ve always favored goats. They’re ornery, stubborn, and know their own minds. You can respect that.

“The goats will grow on you,” you reply. “You’ll find something you have in common.”

He scoffs but doesn’t argue.

“A store then, if you don’t like animals. We were going to have one eventually, in Lothering.”

He goes still but you catch the flash as his eyes go wide in the dark. So much for sleep. “Your family?”

It’s easier to speak of them here, now. “Yes. A big one, if we could pull together the money. Store, I mean, not family. Well, maybe if Carver or Bethany”—you don’t choke on her name anymore—“had settled down early.”

“And you would wish for us—“ He pauses, reconsiders. “You are requesting my assistance… in running this store?”

“Yes,” you say, immediate and certain. You try not to tense, but you still stroke his cheek with your thumb, curl closer towards him.

“Please,” you say, and try to want a little less. “I would like that.”

He is silent for a moment, then says quietly, as though you have given him something too large for words, “Thank you, Hawke.”

—

He is first awake come morning, and you groan, try to slap away his foot as he nudges your shoulder again.

“I’m awake.”

“So you said. Half an hour ago.”

“I mean it now.”

He gives you a narrow glance, but puts his foot down. “That sounds familiar.”

You don’t deign to answer. Instead you roll yourself further into the blankets, and pretend not to hear his sigh.

You are very tired.

He lets you sleep.

When you finally untangle yourself from the blankets, he has already taken care of the campsite, kicked dirt over the fire and spread the ashes, smoothed over the footprints, arranged both your belongings in a tidy pile. The waterskins look full again.

You stand, then stretch, and he looks up from where he sits leaning against the packs, legs crossed at the ankles, unarmored. You go to sit beside him.

Wordlessly, he offers you a piece of dried meat and a handful of late blackberries, hard and small and sour. You cram the blackberries in your mouth first, then take a bite of meat. You taste tart and smoke and beef, but mostly your mouth registers a dim weary boredom. Then longing. You try not to think of a stew, warm and rich and cooked all day, of bread, just baked and still hot and soft on the inside. 

You try not thinking of these things intensely as you take a mouthful of water, then wet your hand and rub it over your face. You take another bite, then give in and think of fresh bread and hot meat and drinking something, anything, so long as it’s cold and sweet and doesn’t taste faintly of mud. If you told Fenris, he would only sigh at you, sympathetic and resigned, and refuse to play along; he stopped dwelling on these things five days out of Kirkwall. Instead you lean against him, and want. He leans back for a moment, shoulder solid and warm against you, then stands.

“Ten minutes?”

“Of course.”

He goes to put on his armor and take a quick look around. You shove the rest of your breakfast in your mouth and attend to the bedding before you do the same.

You have your armor on, staff lying beside your share of the baggage by the time he returns.

“Hawke.”

You turn. He is ready, feet braced and shoulders straight, armor and pack settled, sword against his back.

“Did you mean all that?”

He is tentative, head tilted so slightly, weight shifted to the balls of his feet, hands forced lax. You fuss with your gorget, jostle it until it sits more comfortably, and buckle the strap. Your boots aren’t fitting right. You scuff your heel against the ground as you pick up your staff, shoulder your pack.

“All what?”

“A farm,” he says softly. “For us. A small store.”

He pauses, then adds, “A quiet life.”

For a moment, it seems he will say something else. Then he stops, and waits for your answer.

You did. You do. You don’t know what name he has for the emotion lighting his eyes, or that last word he keeps holding in his mouth, but you have a guess.

“That’s the long road for us,” you assure him, and he laughs. Not unkindly, but his face is drawn tight and he only meets your gaze for a moment before his drops to the ground.

“I hope so,” he says, and his voice is as tight as the lines around his eyes. It’s a long way off, too far for him to accept. You slide your hand around the back of his neck, and wait for him to look up. Then you kiss him.

If nothing else now, you have these three things: The stifling expanse of the fugitive’s wide open sky. The way he breathes against you, mouth warm over yours. Your belief in a quiet life together, many, many years down the line, and you will hold onto it until he can answer in the same way he says your name. 

He breaks away first, lips parted, eyes bright. He turns them upon you, fiercely intent and searching. For a moment, you feel peeled, stripped of skin, but then his gaze shifts to a point just past you.

You know that look. He is turning the idea over, examining it from all sides, holding the possibility gently, like a bruise. He looks down, hands at your waist, breathes in. Breathes out. You brush the hair out of his eyes with your left hand, and he leans into the touch.

“How long, do you think?” he says at last, a thousand different questions in one. You don’t ask him to clarify.

“As long as it takes.”

The heels of his hands press tighter against your sides. For a moment, he does nothing else. Then he lifts his gaze and cups your face in one palm. The tips of his gauntlet don’t so much as graze your cheek. He meets your eyes, and says quietly again:

“I hope so.”


End file.
